Karl-Peter Schwarz on populism in Europe

The paper's Czech correspondent Karl-Peter Schwarz analyses the rise of populism in Central and Eastern Europe. "The rise of the populists and their failure to fulfil their campaign pledges have the same root cause: governments must respond to the demands of the single market and the pressures of globalisation, and this pressure is bringing populists into power. It is not only the new EU members that are facing this problem. In virtually every EU state there is a deep rift between voters. It polarises entire societies, as in Italy, or hinders the building of a majority with a sufficiently coherent programme, as is the case in Germany and Austria. This in turn leads to the formation of grand coalitions that have only limited ability to find solutions... Hungary, the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia are not post-communist exceptions to the rule. They are battling with the same problems of political stagnation that plague the EU as a whole."

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